^ On
an 18 March:2009 Having arrived in Yaoundé, Cameroon, the previous
afternoon, Pope Benedict
XVI [16 Apr 1927~] visits President Paul
Biya [13 Feb 1933~] and then meets with the Bishops of Cameroon:

The Pope's apostolic visit will take him on 20 March 2009 to Angola, from
where he will fly back to Rome in the morning of 23 March 2009. —(090216)
2003 The first annual Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award
for Literature (for children and for the rights of children)
is announced
to be awarded on 04 June to Austrian Christine Noestlinger (The Fiery
Frederica — Conrad the Factory-Made Boy) and to the US's Maurice
Sendak (Where
the Wild Things Are). They will share the 5 million kronor ($583'850)
prize established in memory of the author of the Pippi
Långstrump books, Astrid Lindgren [14 Nov 1907 – 28 Jan
2002]
[click
for another Wild Things picture at ART “4” MARCH] —
Litteraturpriset till Astrid Lindgrens minne år 2003 CHRISTINE
NÖSTLINGER OCH MAURICE SENDAK DELAR DET FÖRSTA LITTERATURPRISET
— Juryns motivering är: “Christine
Nöstlinger (Österrike) är en pålitlig ouppfostrare
av Astrid Lindgrens kaliber. Hennes mångskiftande och djupt engagerade
författarskap är präglat av respektlös humor, klarsynt
allvar och lågmäld värme och hon ställer sig oreserverat
på barnens och de marginaliserades sida.”
“Maurice Sendak (USA) är den moderna bilderbokens portalgestalt.
Som ingen annan har han utvecklat bilderbokens unika möjligheter att
berätta - till glädje för ständigt nya bilderbokskonstnärer.
Och han är en av de modigaste utforskarna av barndomens mest hemlighetsfulla
skrymslen - till glädje för ständigt nya läsare.”
Litteraturpriset till Astrid Lindgrens minne
har instiftats av den svenska regeringen och är ett årligt internationellt
barn- och ungdomslitteraturpris. Priset på fem miljoner kronor (€540'000)
kan gå till författarskap, illustratörskap och läsfrämjande
insatser i Astrid Lindgrens anda. Utdelningen av litteraturpriset sker vid
en ceremoni på Skansen i Stockholm den 4 juni 2003.
2002 The stock of Nortel Networks Corporation (NT) falls
to its lowest price since December 1995, to $4.64 intraday, because of poor
prospects due to weak spending by network carriers. The stock sold as high
as $124 in recent years. [5-year price chart >] . It would
close at $2.35 on 18 March 2003, after having traded as low as $0.44 on
10 October 2002. 2001 El socialista Bertrand Delanoë,
candidato de la coalición de izquierda (PSF-Verdes) a la alcaldía de París,
se proclama vencedor en la segunda vuelta de las elecciones municipales
y consigue romper con más de un siglo de dominio de la derecha en la capital
francesa.2000 Taiwan ends more than a half century
of Nationalist Party rule, electing Chen Shui-bian, leader of the Progressist
Democratic Party which favors Taiwan's formal independence from mainland
China. ^2000 Soap bubble theorem.
Mathematicians announce the proof of Plateau's
conjecture that two joined soap bubbles are portions of spheres separated
by part of a sphere that bulges into the bigger bubble. Joseph
Antoine Ferdinand Plateau (born 18011014 Brussels, died 18830915 Ghent)
was a physicist who is best remembered in mathematics for Plateau Problems.
He used a solution of soapy water and glycerine and dipped wire contours
into it, noting that the surfaces formed were minimal surfaces. He was blind
for the last 40 years of his life after he experimented by staring at the
Sun for 25 seconds. Plateau did not
have the mathematical skills to investigate the problem theoretically but
Weierstrass,
Riemann
and Schwarz
worked on minimal surfaces problems, some of which were later solved by
Douglas
and Radó.
Plateau wrote some mathematical work on number theory and wrote a joint
article with Quételet.

1997 Digital wins
injunction against Alta Vista Technology
Digital Equipment, owners of the Alta Vista search engine, announced
it had won an injunction against tiny Alta Vista Technology Inc. (ATI).
ATI was accused of violating Digital's trademark on the Alta Vista
name. Digital had purchased ATI's rights to the Alta Vista trademark
in 1996 and licensed back to ATI two limited uses of the Alta Vista
trademark: as part of its corporate name and in its Web site address.
The judge found that Alta Vista had changed the appearance of its
Web site to resemble Digital's Alta Vista site more closely and had
started selling banner advertising. The ruling prohibited ATI from
using the Alta Vista trademark to identify products or services and
to avoid linking to Digital's site in a way that implied its site
was part of the search engine.

^1996 Microsoft's home banking
plan Microsoft
announces plans to expand home banking on the Internet. The plan would
allow banks and service companies to establish connections to customers
using Microsoft Money, the company's personal finance program. The
move threatened the home banking ventures of rival Intuit, publishers
of Quicken software.

1985 Capital Cities
merges with American Broadcasting (ABC)
After a few months of negotiations, Capital Cities Communications
seals a deal to acquire media stalwart American Broadcasting Cos.
(ABC). Capital Cities handed over $3.5 billion in cash and warrants,
marking what was then one of the biggest mergers in US corporate history.
On paper, the acquisition was a tremendous boon for Capital Cities
who, despite having but a fraction of ABC's revenues, was able to
translate healthy profit margins and an efficient management system
into a major stake in the broadcast industry. The deal also made sense
for ABC, which had recently become ripe fodder for a hostile takeover.
However, selling out to Capital Cities was something of a bittersweet
moment for seventy-nine-year-old company chief Leonard Goldenson.
Indeed, when Goldman took control of ABC in the early 1950s, the network
was teetering on the brink of bankruptcy; not only did he save ABC
from the scrap heap, but Goldman also kept the company humming along
for roughly three decades. Wall Street, however, held back its tears
and stamped its seal of approval on the deal: in a day of zesty trading,
ABC's stock surged $31.375 to close at $105.875.

^
1970 Anti-Communist coup in Cambodia.
Returning to Cambodia after visits
to Moscow and Peking, Prince Norodom Sihanouk is ousted as Cambodian
chief of state in a bloodless coup by pro-western Lt. Gen. Lon Nol,
premier and defense minister, and First Deputy Premier Prince Sisowath
Sirik Matak, who proclaim the establishment of the Khmer Republic.
Sihanouk had tried to maintain Cambodian neutrality, but the Communist
Khmer Rouge, supported by their North Vietnamese allies, had waged
a very effective war against Cambodian government forces. After ousting
Sihanouk and taking control of the government, Lon Nol immediately
set about to defeat the Communists. Between 1970 and 1975, he and
his army, the Forces Armées Nationales Khmères (FANK),
with US support and military aid, would battle the Khmer Rouge communists
for control of Cambodia. When
the US forces departed South Vietnam in 1973, both the Cambodians
and South Vietnamese found themselves suddenly fighting the communists
alone. Without US support, Lon Nol's forces succumbed to the Khmer
Rouge in April 1975. The victorious Khmer Rouge evacuated Phnom Penh
and began reordering Cambodian society, which resulted in a killing
spree and the notorious "killing fields." Eventually, hundreds of
thousands of Cambodians were murdered or died from exhaustion, hunger,
and disease. During the five years of bitter fighting for control
of the country, approximately 10% of Cambodia's 7 million people died.

1969
US bombs Cambodia for the first time
US B-52 bombers are diverted from their targets in South Vietnam to
attack suspected communist base camps and supply areas in Cambodia
for the first time in the war. President Nixon approved the mission--formally
designated Operation Breakfast--at a meeting of the National Security
Council on March 15. This mission and subsequent B-52 strikes inside
Cambodia became known as the "Menu" bombings. A total of 3630 flights
over Cambodia dropped 110'000 tons of bombs during a 14-month period
through April 1970. This bombing of Cambodia and all follow up "Menu"
operations were kept secret from the American public and the US Congress
because Cambodia was ostensibly neutral. To keep the secret, an intricate
reporting system was established at the Pentagon to prevent disclosure
of the bombing. Although the New York Times broke the story of the
secret bombing campaign in May 1969, there was little adverse public
reaction.

1963 Supreme Court's Miranda Decision; defendants must
have lawyers.

^
1962 Algerian War ends after 7
years (250'000 killed)
France and the Front de Libération Nationale (FLN) sign a peace
agreement to end the seven-year Algerian War, signaling the end of
130 years of colonial French rule in Algeria. In late October 1954,
a faction of young Algerian Muslims established the Front de Liberation
Nationale (FLN) as a guerrilla organization dedicated to winning independence
from France. They staged several bloody uprisings during the next
year, and by 1956 the FLN was threatening to overrun the colonial
cites, home to Algeria's sizable European settler population.
In France, a new administration, led
by Guy Mollet, promised to quell the Muslim rebellion and sent 500'000
French soldiers to Algeria to crush the FLN. To isolate the rebels
and their area of operations, France granted Tunisia and Morocco independence,
and their borders with Algeria were militarized with barbed wire and
electric fencing. When FLN leaders attempted to travel to Tunisia
in October 1956 to discuss the Algerian War, French forces diverted
their plane and jailed the men. In response, the FLN launched a new
campaign of terrorism in the colonial capital of Algiers. General
Jacques Massu, head of France's crack parachute unit, was given extraordinary
powers to act in the city, and through torture and assassination the
FLN presence in Algiers was destroyed. By the end of 1957, the rebels
had been pushed back into rural areas, and it seemed the tide had
turned in the Algerian War.
However, in May 1958, a new crisis began when European Algerians launched
massive demonstrations calling for the integration of Algeria with
France and for the return of Charles de Gaulle to power. In France,
the Algerian War had seriously polarized public opinion, and many
feared the country was on the brink of army revolt or civil war. On
01 June, de Gaulle, who had served as leader of France after World
War II, was appointed prime minister by the National Assembly and
authorized to write a new national constitution. Days after returning
to power, de Gaulle visited Algiers, and though he was warmly welcomed
by the European Algerians he did not share their enthusiasm for Algerian
integration. Instead, he granted Muslims the full rights of French
citizenship and in 1959 declared publicly that Algerians had the right
to determine their own future.
During the next two years, the worst violence in Algeria was perpetrated
by European Algerians rather than the FLN, but scattered revolts and
terrorism did not prevent the opening of peace negotiations between
France and the FLN-led provisional government of the Algerian Republic
in 1961. On 16 March 1962, a peace agreement was signed at Évian-les-Bains,
France, promising independence for Algeria pending a national referendum
on the issue. French aid would continue, and Europeans could return
to their native countries, remain as foreigners in Algeria, or take
Algerian citizenship. On 01 July 1962, Algerians overwhelmingly approved
the agreement, and most of the one million Europeans in Algeria poured
out of the country. More than 100'000 Muslim and 10'000 French soldiers
were killed in the seven-year Algerian War, along with thousands of
Muslim civilians and hundreds of European colonists.
Les accords d'Évian annoncent la fin d'une
guerre de huit ans et de 132 ans de domination française en Algérie.
Le cessez-le-feu est prévu le lendemain à midi. Ensuite, des référendums
en métropole et en Algérie doivent permettre de ratifier les accords.
Dans les faits, les massacres vont se prolonger jusqu'à la proclamation
de l'indépendance, le 03 Jul 1962. Un million de pieds-noirs (10%
de la population) fuient les représailles du FLN (Front de libération
nationale) et les attentats de l'OAS (Organisation de l'armée secrète).
L'Algérie indépendante, en mal
d'identité, va choisir le socialisme d'État à la manière soviétique
et lentement sombrer dans le dénuement et l'anarchie. Avec la fin
du fardeau colonial et l'arrivée des pieds-noirs, la France va, de
son côté, connaître un regain de prospérité et de dynamisme. Mais
elle restera longtemps marquée par le conflit et surtout le souvenir
des tortures. De 1954 à 1962,
la guerre non déclarée d'Algérie a mobilisé deux millions de jeunes
Français du contingent. Elle a fait 9000 morts chez les soldats français,
non compris 16'000 qui ont péri du fait d'accidents. 270'000 musulmans
sont aussi morts du fait de la guerre (le FLN arrondit leur nombre
à... un million). Le terrorisme a fait 4000 victimes en France et
en Algérie du fait des règlements de comptes et des attentats perpétrés
par le FLN. L'OAS, mouvement terroriste créé sur le tard par des militants
de l'Algérie française, est pour sa part responsable de 6000 victimes
tant françaises qu'algériennes.
Parmi les principales victimes de l'évacuation hâtive de l'Algérie
figurent les supplétifs musulmans, aussi appelés harkis. Avec leur
famille, ils représentaient un million de personnes, soit un effectif
équivalent à celui des pieds-noirs. Le ministre des Affaires algériennes,
Louis Joxe, interdit leur embarquement sur les navires à destination
de la métropole. 93'000 musulmans, y compris femmes, enfants et famille
proche, doivent néanmoins leur salut à des officiers qui bafouent
les consignes de leurs supérieurs. Mais 50'000 autres harkis sont
massacrés dans les semaines qui suivent le «cessez-le-feu».

1959 Hawaiian
statehood bill is signed US
President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs the Hawaiian statehood bill into
law, approving the entrance of Hawaii into the United States pending
approval by the electorate of the Pacific Ocean island chain.
The first known settlers of the Hawaiian
Islands were Polynesian voyagers who arrived sometime in the eighth
century. In the early eighteenth century, the first American traders
came to Hawaii to exploit the islands’ sandalwood, which was much
valued in China at the time. In the 1830s, the sugar industry was
introduced to Hawaii, and by the mid-nineteenth century, had become
well established. American missionaries and planters brought about
great changes in Hawaiian political, cultural, economic, and religious
life, and in 1840, a constitutional monarchy was established, stripping
the Hawaiian monarch of much of his authority.
In 1893, a group of American expatriates and sugar planters supported
by a division of US Marines deposed Queen Liliuokalani, the last reigning
monarch of Hawaii. One year later, the Republic of Hawaii was established
as a US protectorate with Hawaiian-born Sanford B. Dole as president.
Many in Congress opposed the formal annexation of Hawaii, and it was
not until 1898, and the use of the naval base at Pearl Harbor during
the Spanish-American War, that Hawaii’s strategic importance became
evident and formal annexation was approved.
Two years later, Hawaii was organized into a formal US territory,
and, during World War II, firmly entered into the American national
identity following the surprise Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
On 18 March 1959, the US government
approved statehood for Hawaii, and, on 27 June 1959, the Hawaiian
people voted by a wide majority to accept statehood. On 21 August
1959, Hawaii formally entered the Union as the fiftieth state

^
1950 Nationalist Chinese forces raid
mainland China
In a surprise raid on the communist People's Republic of China (PRC),
military forces of the Nationalist Chinese government on Taiwan invade
the mainland and capture the town of Sungmen. Because the United States
supported the attack, it resulted in even deeper tensions and animosities
between the US and the PRC. In October 1949, the leader of the communist
revolution in China, Mao Zedong, declared victory against the Nationalist
government of China and formally established the People's Republic
of China. Nationalist troops, politicians, and supporters fled the
country and many ended up on Taiwan, an island off the Chinese coast.
Once there, they declared themselves
the real Chinese government and were immediately recognized as such
by the United States. Officials from the United States refused to
have anything to do with the PRC government and adamantly refused
to grant it diplomatic recognition. Nationalist Chinese leader Chiang
Kai-Shek bombarded the mainland with propaganda broadcasts and pamphlets
dropped from aircraft signaling his intention of invading the PRC
and removing what he referred to as the "Soviet aggressors." In the
weeks preceding the 18 March 1950 raid, Chiang had been particularly
vocal, charging that the Soviets were supplying the PRC with military
advisors and an imposing arsenal of weapons.
On 18 March, thousands of Nationalist soldiers, supported by air and
sea units, attack the coast of the PRC, capturing the town of Sungmen
that lay about 300 km south of Shanghai. The Nationalists reported
that they killed over 2500 Communist soldiers.
Battles between the raiding group and communist forces continued for
weeks, but eventually the Nationalist forces were defeated and driven
back to Taiwan. Perhaps more important than the military encounter
was the war of words between the United States and the PRC. Communist
officials immediately charged that the United States was behind the
raid, and even suggested that American pilots and advisors accompanied
the attackers. (No evidence has surfaced to support those charges.)
US officials were cautiously supportive of the Nationalist attack,
though what they hoped it would accomplish beyond minor irritation
to the PRC remains unknown.
Just eight months later, military forces from the PRC and the United
States met on the battlefield in Korea. Despite suggestions from some
officials, including the commander of US troops Gen. Douglas MacArthur,
that the United States "unleash" the Nationalist armies against mainland
China, President Harry S. Truman refrained from this action, fearing
that it would escalate into World War III.

^1942
US concentration camps for innocent Japanese-Americans.
The War Relocation Authority is created
to "Take all people of Japanese descent into custody, surround them
with troops, prevent them from buying land, and return them to their
former homes at the close of the war." Anger toward and fear of Japanese
Americans began in Hawaii shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor;
everyone of Japanese ancestry, old and young, prosperous and poor,
was suspected of espionage. This suspicion quickly broke out on the
mainland; as early as 19 February 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt
ordered that German, Italian, and Japanese nationals  as well
as Japanese Americans  be barred from certain areas deemed sensitive
militarily. California, which
had a significant number of Japanese and Japanese Americans, saw a
particularly virulent form of anti-Japanese sentiment, with the state's
attorney general, Earl Warren (who would go on to be the chief justice
of the United States), claiming that a lack of evidence of sabotage
among the Japanese population proved nothing, as they were merely
biding their time. While roughly
2000 persons of German and Italian ancestry were interned during this
period, US citizens and residents of Japanese ancestry suffered most
egregiously. The War Relocation Authority, established on 18 March
1942, was aimed at them specifically: 120'000 men, women, and children
were rounded up on the West Coast. Three categories of internees were
created: Nisei (native US citizens of Japanese immigrant parents),
Issei (Japanese immigrants), and Kibei (native US citizens educated
largely in Japan). The internees were transported to one of 10 relocation
centers in California, Utah, Arkansas, Arizona, Idaho, Colorado, and
Wyoming. The quality of life in a relocation center was only marginally
better than prison: Families were sardined into 6-by-8-meter rooms
and forced to use communal bathrooms. No razors, scissors, or radios
were allowed. Children attended War Relocation Authority schools.
One Japanese American, Gordon Hirabayashi,
fought internment all the way to the Supreme Court. He argued that
the Army, responsible for effecting the relocations, had violated
his rights as a US citizen. The court shamefully ruled against him,
citing the nation's right to protect itself against sabotage and invasion
as sufficient justification for curtailing his and other Japanese
Americans' constitutional rights.
In 1943, Japanese Americans who had not been interned were finally
allowed to join the US military and fight in the war. More than 17'000
Japanese Americans fought; the all-Nisei 442nd Regiment, which fought
in the Italian campaign, became the single most decorated unit in
US history. The regiment won 4667 medals, awards, and citations, including
1 Medal of Honor, 52 Distinguished Service Crosses, and 560 Silver
Stars. Many of these soldiers, when writing home, were writing to
relocation centers. In 1990,
belated and inadequate reparations were made to surviving internees
and to the heirs of those deceased in the form of a formal apology
by the US government and a measly check for $20'000.

1940 First Axis
war council In
the Brenner Pass in the Alps, Adolf Hitler, leader of Nazi Germany,
and Benito Mussolini, leader of Fascist Italy, meet to discuss Italy’s
imminent entrance into World War II in an alliance with Germany.
After seizing power over Italy in 1925,
Mussolini appealed to his country’s former Western allies for new
treaties, but his brutal 1935 invasion of Ethiopia ended all hope
of alliance with the Western democracies.
In 1936, Mussolini joined Hitler in his support of Francisco Franco’s
Nationalist forces in the Spanish Civil War, prompting the signing
of a treaty of cooperation in foreign policy between Fascist Italy
and Nazi Germany in 1937. In 1939, in the last few months preceding
the outbreak of World War II in Europe, the two governments’ relationship
was reinforced by a new military alliance, known as the "Pact of Steel."
However, as German armies stormed
across Europe, Italy waited until it was assured of Germany’s success
before officially entering the war. In March of 1940, Hitler and Mussolini
met, and on June 10 of the same year, Italy declared war against the
Allied powers. In September
of 1940, Japan, which had signed a cooperative pact with Italy and
Germany in late 1936, strengthened its participation in the "Axis"
with the signing of the Tripartite Pact in Berlin.

^1929 GM to acquires Opel
General Motors announces its plans to acquire Opel AG, one of Germany’s
largest car companies. When Alfred P. Sloan became president of GM
in 1923, there was already a GM of Canada, but all other foreign markets
were still being served through export. Throughout the 1920s the economic
nationalism of European countries made international expansion difficult
for the US car companies. Ford attempted to crack foreign markets
by setting up manufacturing subsidiaries in other countries. GM’s
Sloan decided that purchasing existing companies in countries with
desirable markets was a better policy. In 1925 GM purchased Vauxhall
Motors of Great Britain. Sloan’s policies allowed GM to expand its
market without attracting attention as a foreign company. On this
day in 1929 GM announced its plans to buy the Adam Opel A.G. GM still
runs Opel under the Opel name. Alfred Sloan is credited with turning
General Motors from one of the most successful car companies in America
into one of the greatest industrial giants in the world.

1834
Tolpuddle martyrs Banished
to Australia In England, six English agricultural laborers are sentenced
to seven years of banishment to Australia’s New South Wales penal
colony for their trade union activities.
In 1833, after several years of reductions in their agricultural wages,
several workers in Tolpuddle, a small village east of Dorchester,
England, formed the Friendly Society of Agricultural Labourers. Led
by George Loveless, a farm laborer, the union rapidly grew in the
area, and it was agreed that the men would not accept work for less
than ten shillings a week. With
the urging of the British government, which feared a repetition of
the rural unrest of 1830, local authorities arrested Loveless and
five others on charges of taking an unlawful oath, citing an outdated
law that had been passed in the late eighteenth century to deal with
naval mutiny. On 18 March 1834,
these six men, including one who had never taken the oath, were sentenced
to seven years imprisonment at an Australian penal colony. However,
public reaction throughout the country made the six into popular heroes,
and, in 1836, after continuous agitation, the sentence against the
so-called "Tolpuddle Martyrs" was finally remitted.
Only one of the six returned to Tolpuddle; the rest emigrated to Canada,
where one Tolpuddle Martyr  John Standfield  became mayor
of his district. The popular movement surrounding the Tolpuddle controversy
is generally regarded as the beginning of trade unionism in Great
Britain.

^
1766 British parliament repeals the Stamp Act
After four months of organized American
protests, the British Parliament repeals the Stamp Act, a taxation
measure enacted to raise revenues for a standing British army in America.
The Stamp Act was passed on
22 March 1765, leading to the first American opposition to a subject
that was to be a major cause of the revolution: taxation without representation.
There was a general call for repeal in the American colonies (see
the Stamp Act Resolves
of 19 October 1765). On 01 November 1765, despite a general call for
repeal in the American colonies, the Stamp Act was enacted. The controversial
act forced colonists to buy a British stamp for every official document
they obtained. The stamp itself displayed an image of a Tudor rose
framed by the word "America" and the Latin phrase Honni soit qui
mal y pense--"Shame to him who thinks evil of it."
The colonists, who had convened the Stamp Act Congress in October
of 1765 to vocalize their opposition to the impending enactment, greeted
the arrival of the stamps with outrage and violence. Most colonists
called for a boycott of British goods and some organized attacks on
the customhouses and homes of tax collectors.
After months of protest, and an appeal by Benjamin Franklin before
the British House of Commons, Parliament voted to repeal the Stamp
Act on March 18, 1765. However, the same day, Parliament passed the
Declaratory Acts, asserting that the British government had free and
total legislative power over the colonies.

1673 Lord Berkeley of England sold his half of the American
colony of New Jersey to the Quakers. 1543 de Soto
observes first recorded flood in America (Mississippi R)1526
François I regresa a París, tras el cautiverio sufrido en Madrid
después de la batalla de Pavía. 1123 The First
Lateran Council opened in Rome. It was the Ninth Ecumenical Council,
and the first one to be held in the West. Lateran I settled the right of
investiture (i.e., the right to choose replacement clergy) by a treaty between
Pope Calixtus II and Holy Roman Emperor Henry V.  A instancias del
papa Calixto II, se inaugura en la basílica de San Juan de Letrán de Roma
el Primer Concilio de Letrán. 0731 St Gregory III
begins his reign as Pope 0417 Saint
Zosimus is consecrated bishop of Rome (and therefore Pope)

2004 Jacqueline Contreras, 22, from lung and extremities
burns, and fractures suffered in one of the 11 March 2004 terrorist attacks
on trains in Madrid, of which she becomes the 202th dead victim. She was
from Chanchamayo province, Peru, and had been in Spain for two years, working
as a servant to a lawyer couple and planning to study law.2004
Ali Abdel Aziz, shot from behind by US troops manning a checkpoint
in central Baghdad, Iraq, as the car (clearly marked “TV”) in
which he was drives away while another car speeds through the checkpoint
and the soldiers fire on both cars. He was a cameraman for Dubai-based satellite
television channel Al Arabiya, whose correspondent Ali al-Khatib, in the
same car, is critically wounded and dies the next day.2004
Mohammed Farhan (or Mohamad Ahmad), Majid Rashid, and Nadia Nasrat (or Nadia
Shawkat), respectively security guard, technician, and reporter
of Diyala Television, as gunmen in a car, east of Baquba, Iraq, fire at
the minibus taking them to work, in the morning. The other 8 Diyala employees
in the minibus are wounded. The
International Federation of Journalists protests against
this and the above killings.2004 Two US soldiers,
by mortar rounds fired at Logistics Base Seitz, of the 13th Corps Support
Command, in Balad, Iraq. 6 US soldiers are wounded.2004 Four
Iraqi civilian men and one boy, by parked car bomb in Basra, Iraq,
as British military patrol passes by and is unhurt.2003 Louis
Jones, Jr., by lethal injection, for the 18 February 1995 kidnapping
from the San Angelo, Texas, Air Force base, rape, and beating to death with
a tire iron of woman Pvt. Tracie Joy McBride, 19. In 1993, Jones was honorably
discharged, as a master sergeant, after 22 years in the US Army. He was
a decorated veteran of the Gulf War. In December 2000, after his conviction,
the Pentagon informed Jones that he, along with about 130'000 other soldiers,
may have been exposed to low levels of nerve gas from a weapons depot which
US troops destroyed near the southern Iraqi city Khamisiyah in March 1991.
During his trial, defense experts testified that Jones suffered brain damage
from abuse as a child. Since the 2001 resumption of US federal executions,
this is the third. The first two were those of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy
McVeigh and narcotrafficker Juan Garza.2003 Walanzo Deon Robinson,
31, by lethal injection, in Oklahoma, for the 19 May 1989 murder of rival
drug dealer Dennis Hill, 26. Robinson, who was 18 at the time, and Hill
were arguing over who could sell cocaine on a northeast Oklahoma City street
corner when Robinson pulled out a handgun. Robinson shot Hill, 26, in the
back as he tried to run away, then shot him twice more as he lay in the
street asking someone to call an ambulance.2003 Nasser Assida,
27, Hamas militant, shot, between village Al-Funduk and enclave settlement
Immanuel, by Israeli troops who were hunting for him. In August 1998, he
was one of the gunmen who attacked the enclave settlement Yitzhar, killing
two guards. In December 2001, Asssida planned and participated in an attack
on a bus heading to Immanuel, in which 11 civilians were killed. In July
2002, his cell killed nine persons at the same place. The next day, his
cell encountered a troop of soldiers in a wadi near Immanuel and an Israeli
officer was killed in the clash. 2003 Senior Hamas
militant Ali
Alan; and Israeli Sergeant Major Ami Cohen,
in predawn gunfight while Israeli troops search a home in Beit Jala, West
Bank, unaware that Alan was there. The Israelis arrest his father, mother,
and brother. More than 50 Israelis have been killed in attacks organized
by Alan, including the most recent bus bombing in Haifa, and attacks at
the Pat Junction and the Kiryat Menachem neighborhood in Jerusalem. 2003 Ibrahim Barhum, 20, Palestinian, by Israeli gunfire,
as he stands at the entrance of his home near Rafah, Gaza Strip.2003
Nabil Wazan, 22, Palestinian, of wounds sustained the previous
day during Israeli attack on Nusseirat refugee camp, Gaza Strip.2003
Fahd ibn Samran al-Sa'idy, 28, by explosion of a bomb in a Riyadh,
Saudi Arabia, house in which police would find 20 kg of powerful explosives,
a large stash of guns and ammunition, chemicals with an analysis laboratory,
money and false identity papers. He was known to have been trained in arms
and explosives in Afghanistan and was under surveillance by the police.2003 Ronald Horsch, 65, from the US; William Sivell,
45, a Canadian rig manager; and Yemenis Nazem al-Kabati,
who was an assistant mechanic, and Naji Abdullah al-Kumaim,
approximately 43, a carpenter, who shoots them and then himself. Horsch,
a US Hunt Oil superintendent and the others murdered were working in Marib
province, Yemen, on a rig owned and operated by the Nabors Drilling Company,
of which Sivell and the Yemenis were employees. Al-Kumaim, who was suffering
from depression and yells that he is taking revenge “against those
who were filing reports about him”, shoots Horsch and Sivell (and
Canadian Mark Edwards, who survives critically injured) then flees, pursued
by al-Kabati, whom he shoots, them commits suicide.^2002 Brittanie Cecil, from
hockey puck injury.
Brittanie Cecil [photo >] dies two days after being struck
in the head by a puck at an NHL hockey game at Nationwide Arena in Columbus,
Ohio. Her father had taken her to the game as an early present for her 14th
birthday, 20 March 2002. They were sitting behind one of the goal areas,
which does not have protective netting as in some arenas. A puck flew over
the 2.4-meter-high protective plexiglas enclosure, hit Brittanie on the
head, ricoched to the side of the head of Larry Young, 61 (who was hurt,
but not severely), and then to the mouth of a 6-year-old girl, who caught
the puck, which had split her lip and knocked out a tooth. Brittanie remained
conscious as her mom and dad helped her to walk to the aid station and then
as an ambulance took her to Children's Hospital.
Brittanie lived in West Alexandria, a small farming town of 1500, and was
an eighth-grader at Twin Valley South Middle School near Dayton.
The coroner would deduce from the autopsy
that when she was hit with the puck, her head snapped back in a type of
whiplash action and caused damage to her right vertebral artery. But she
did not show any symptom of a rupture to the vertebral artery — lethargy,
slurred speech, partial facial paralysis — until she lapsed into unconsciousness
at 09:00 today. Then the hospital did an angiogram and discovered the injury
to the artery, which runs along the spine and pumps blood into the brain.
The rupture had caused a clot to form in the artery, leading to more clots
and a swelling of the brain that results in her death later in the day.
2002 Maud Farris-Luse, in Michigan, born on 21 January
1887.2002 Mohammed Abu Obeid, 26, Palestinian militant
of the military wing of Fatah, by Israeli army gunfire in a clash Monday
night near the Kissufim checkpoint in the Gaza Strip. 2002
Suleiman a-Zari'i, 50, Palestinian, by Israeli gunfire, in Dir
al-Balah, adjacent to Gush Katif. 2001 Stella Riehl,
69, in Amtrak train derailment between Brooks and Nodaway, Iowa. She was
returning home to Colorado Springs with the ashes of her brother Antoni
Miszuk, 71, who had died in a Des Moines nursing home on 15 March, a few
hours before she arrived to visit him.. They had immigrated from Prdy, Poland,
in the 1950s. Some 90 of the 210 passengers on the train were injured.2000 Big Mama, 25, halibut, and 19 other fish of the California
Fish Hatchery in Redondo Beach, speared, cooked, and served at a birthday
party by a very drunk Taras Poznik, 24. On 11 April 2000, he would be sentenced
to 6 months in prison, 6 months in an alcoholism-treatment center, and to
pay $50'000 to replace Big Mama (a sum he most likely will not be able to
come up with). The murder of Big Mama, a 23-kg prolific egg-layer and a
favorite of visitors, causes more outrage in the community than any murder
of a human. 1998 One Kosovar shot by Serb police,
during protests in Pristina. Several demonstrators are wounded.1993
Dahlia Alvarez, stabbed, in El Paso, Texas. The murderer is not
discovered, at least during the next 11 years. 1989 Jeffreys,
mathematician.1989 Francisco García Pavón, escritor
español.1986 Bernard Malamud, novelist and short
story writer, born on 26 April 1914 in Brooklyn, son of Russian Jewish immigrants.
About his novels: The Natural (1952) is an allegory about the rise
and fall of a baseball player.. The Assistant (1957), his best
novel, is about a Jewish grocery store owner (as Malamud's father Max was)
and his Italian assistant during the Depression. The Fixer (1966)
is inspired by the 1913 trial and acquittal of Jewish Mendel Beiliss fro
ritual murder in Kiev. The Tenants through the conflict of a Jewish
and a Black writer treats of the cultural and psychological upheaval among
Blacks caused by the rise of nationalism, separatism and racial pride. God's
Grace is concerned with man's survival in the nuclear age.Other novels
are A New Life (1961) and Dubin's Lives (about a biographer
in midlife). Story collections are The Magic Barrel, Idiots First
(1963), Pictures of Fidelman, Rembrandt's Hat, The Sories of Bernard
Malamud (1983), Story Story Story.1983 Humberto
II de Saboya, último rey de Italia.1980 Erich Fromm,
German-born US psychoanalyst and social philosopher (Sane Society). He was
born on 23 March 1900.1965 Faruk I, rey de Egipto.1965:: 14 soldados colombianos en un convoy militar en
Inzá asaltado por guerrilleros de las FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias
de Colombia), al mando de Manuel Marulanda “Tirofijo”.1964 Norbert
Wiener, mathematician.

1947 William C.
Durant, 85, founder of General Motors, in New York
City Economic historian Dana
Thomas described Durant as a man "drunk with the gamble of America.
He was obsessed with its highest article of faith—that the man who
played for the steepest stakes deserved the biggest winnings." General
Motors reflected Durant’s ambitious attitude toward risk-taking in
its breathtaking expansionist policies, becoming in its founder’s
words "an empire of cars for every purse and purpose." But Durant’s
gambling attitude had its downside. Over a span of three years Durant
purchased Oldsmobile, Oakland (later Cadillac and Pontiac), and attempted
to purchase Ford. By 1910 GM was out of cash, and Durant lost his
controlling interest in the company. Durant would get back into the
game by starting Chevrolet, and he would eventually regain control
of GM--only to lose it a second time. Later in life, Durant attempted
to start a bowling center and a supermarket; however, these ventures
met with little success.

^
1925: 695 victims
of the Tri-State tornado The
worst tornado in US history passes through eastern Missouri, southern
Illinois, and southern Indiana, killing 695 people, injuring some
13'000 people, and causing seventeen million dollars in property damage.
Known as the "Tri-State Tornado,"
the deadly twister began its northeast track in Ellington, Missouri,
but southern Illinois was the hardest hit. Over 500 of the total 695
people who perished were killed in southern Illinois, including 234
in Murphrysboro and 127 in West Frankfort.
A tornado is a dark, funnel-shaped cloud containing violently rotating
air that develops in climate conditions that, in the United States,
are generally unique to the central and southern plains and the Gulf
states. The rotating winds of tornadoes can attain velocities of 500
km/h and its diameter can vary from a few meters to 2 km. A tornado
generally travels in a northeasterly distance at speeds of 30 to 60
km/h, and covers anywhere between 1 and over 150 km. The Tri-State
Tornado of 1925, which traveled 352 km, spent over three hours on
the ground, devastated 425 square kilometers, had a diameter of nearly
2 km, and traveled at speeds in excess of 110 km/h, is unsurpassed
in US history

1924 John Hays, Black, lynched in Crisp County, Georgia,
accused of attempted rape of a White woman. 1922 Edward Arthur
Walton, British painter born on 15 April 1860. — more
with link to an image.1913 King George I of Greece
assassinated by Schinas, un desequilibrado, en Salónica.1912:
26 persons by a locomotive which explodes in the Southern Pacific
Railroad yards in San Antonio, Texas, as stem pressure is increased during
repairs. Some of those killed are in a house 600 meters away, into which
a 400-kg piece of the locomotive crashes. 32 persons are seriously injured.1907 Pierre Eugène Marcellin Berthelot, químico francés.1900 John Bailey, Black, lynched in Cobb County, Georgia,
accused of attempted rape of a White woman. 1871 Augustus
De Morgan, 64, mathematician.1870 Joaquín Gaztambide
y Garbavo, Spanish composer, born on 07 February 1822, who wrote
44 zarzuelas, including La Mensajera (1849), En las Astas del
Toro, Catalina, El Juramento, Las Hijas de Eva, Los Magyares.1844 Sebastien Pether, British artist born in 1790
1584 (Julian date: go
to 28 March Gregorian) Ivan IV Vasilyevich Grozniy (The
Terrible).1455 Giovanni da Fiesole, Fra
Angelico, Italian painter born in 1387.  MORE
ON FRA ANGELICO AT ART 4 MARCH with links to images. 1314:: 39 French Knights
Templars, including Jacques
De Molay, 70, their last grand master, are burned at the stake.
Most church history experts agree that these and other hostilities shown
against the Knights
Templars were caused by the greed and cunning of Philip the Fair, who
sought the great wealth this medieval military religious order had amassed
in the enturies following the Crusades.1216 Inocencio III,
papa. 0978 St
Edward the Martyr, king of Anglo-Saxons (975-978), assassinated.

^1992 Windows 3.1
computer operating system is shipped.
Windows 3.1 became the most popular version of Windows used before
the release of Windows 95. Windows 3.1 came nearly seven years after
the introduction of Windows 1.0, an unimpressive attempt on Microsoft's
part to stay in the race to develop a graphical user interface. During
the mid-1980s, a number of companies, spurred by the introduction
of the revolutionary Macintosh interface in 1984, competed to create
a multitasking, graphical user interface for IBM-PCs. Despite many
competitors, it took years for the graphic environment for PCs to
catch on. Although Microsoft announced Windows in 1983, the product
didn't ship until 1985, and even then, it failed to make a splash.
Meanwhile, Visicorp, the once dominant software company associated
with VisiCalc (the first spreadsheet), was developing VisiOn, a graphic
environment that debuted in 1983 to a resounding flop. Digital Research,
which had led the operating systems niche until DOS took over, devised
GEM, a graphic environment for the PC that also failed to catch on.
It wasn't until Windows 3.0 was introduced in May 1990 that Windows
took off, selling more than three million copies its first year.

^
1932 John Updike, poet, novelist,
in Shillington, Pennsylvania.
The only child of a math teacher father and aspiring writer mother,
Updike developed an early love for reading and drawing and won a scholarship
to Harvard. He became editor of the famous Harvard Lampoon
and married as an undergraduate. After graduating in 1953, Updike
went to England for a year to study art. In England, he met New
Yorker writers and editors E.B. and Katherine White, who offered
him a job. Updike worked on staff for the illustrious magazine until
1957, when he quit and moved to Ipswich, Massachusetts, to concentrate
on fiction and poetry. He supported his wife and children with contributions
to the New Yorker and in 1958 published his first novel, The Poorhouse
Fair, to favorable reviews. Two years later, he published Rabbit,
Run, considered one of his best novels, about a former high school
basketball star named Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom. He wrote a sequel,
Rabbit Redux, in 1971 and won Pulitzer Prizes for Rabbit
Is Rich (1981) and Rabbit at Rest (1990). Updike's 1968
novel, Couples, detailing the sexual high-jinx of married
couples in a small town, topped the bestseller chart for several weeks.
Updike divorced in 1976 and remarried the following year. The prolific
writer has published 50 books, including novels, children's books,
poetry, and journalism collections. He also writes frequently for
magazines.

1931 First electric razor is marketed, by Schick1929 Fidel Ramos, político y militar filipino, presidente
del país.1928 Hans Kung, teólogo suizo.1928
José María Setién, obispo de San Sebastián 1927
George Plimpton, author.1927 Muhammad ben Ahmed
Abdelghani, político argelino.1911 Gabriel Celaya,
poeta español. 1911 Walter
Ledermann, mathematician.1910 Chiang Ching-kuo,
son of Chinese generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, and his successor as leader
of China. He died on 13 January 1988.1909 Ernest
Gallo [–06 Mar 2007], with his brother Julio Gallo [21
Mar 1910 – 02 May 1993] in 1933 (after their father Joseph Gallo Sr.
killed their mother and himself) co-founder of the E & J
Gallo Winery. —(070307) 1899 Lavrenti Beria
chief of Soviet secret police under Stalin.1892 Adolf Richard
Fleischmann, German artist who died in 1968 or 1969.
1891 Shewhart,
mathematician. 1881 Barnum and Bailey's Greatest Show on
Earth opens.1875 Beppe Ciardi, Italian
artist who died in 1932. 1869 Neville Chamberlain
(C) British PM (1937-40). He proclaimed peace in our times obtained
at the cost of betraying Czechoslovakia to appease Hitler at Munich in 1938.
His our times only lasted a few months, until Hitler decided
to gobble up Poland too. Chamberlain died on 09 November 1940, having outlived
his our times by only a couple of months.1863
William Sulzer, New York governor (1913); impeached and removed
from office. He died on 06 November 1941.1862 Eugene Fredrik
Jansson, Swedish painter who died on 15 June 1915. — more
with link to an image.1860 Arthur Neville Chamberlain,
estadista británico. 1858 Rudolph Diesel, German
thermal engineer; he invented the internal-combustion engine. He died on
29 September 1913. inventor del motor de combustión interna que lleva su
nombre.1853 Ferdinand Hodler, Swiss Art
Nouveau painter, who died on 19 May 1918.  MORE
ON HODLER AT ART 4 MARCH
with links to images.

^1852 Wells Fargo
and Company is founded.
Businessmen in New York establish Wells, Fargo and Company, destined
to go far as the leading freight and banking company of the West.
The California economy boomed after the discovery of gold at Sutter's
Mill in 1849, spurring a huge demand for shipping. Henry Wells and
William Fargo (who continued to head the American Express Company
which they had formed on 18 March 1850) joined with several other
New York investors to create Wells, Fargo and Company to serve and
profit from this demand. In
July 1852, the company began transporting its first loads of freight
between the East Coast and the isolated mining camps of California.
From the beginning, Wells, Fargo and Company also engaged in banking,
making good profits in the traffic of gold dust and providing loans
that helped sustain the growth of the California economy. The company
usually used stagecoaches to move gold dust, critical business papers,
and other express freight quickly. The stages could carry nine paying
passengers, and if the interior seats were full, a few more hardy
travelers could ride on top with the driver. The traveling conditions
were far from luxurious, and passengers had to tolerate crowding,
dust, cold, heat, and the occasional holdup or Indian attack. Nonetheless,
the relatively fast pace of travel ensured a steady supply of customers.

Wells, Fargo and Company never hesitated
to dispatch a rider on horseback to deliver or pick up an important
message or package-provided the sender was willing to pay a premium
price. The company operated several small "pony express" routes around
California, and these were particularly valuable to the business community
during winter, when snow often blocked stage and rail routes in the
Sierra Nevada. In 1866, the company merged with several other major
express and stagecoach lines, including Ben Holladay's Overland Mail
Company. For the next three
years, the expanded Wells, Fargo and Company was the unquestionable
leader in Western transportation, providing speedy and reliable service
at reasonable prices. With the completion of the transcontinental
railroad in 1869, the company's dominant position was undermined,
especially in the transcontinental mail and freight business. However,
Wells, Fargo and Company continued to provide essential local transportation
for decades, and the company still exists today as a major banking
institution.

1850
American Express is founded
The brainchild of Henry Wells [12 Dec 1805 – 10 Dec 1878] and
William G. Fargo [20 May 1818 – 03 August 1881], American Express
was a union of three express transport concerns: Livingston, Fargo
& Company, Wells & Co., and Butterfield & Wasson. The newly formed,
and initially unincorporated, transportation company was a fast hit
with the public; by the close of the Civil War, American Express had
set up 900 offices in 10 states. Success, however, bred competition,
and the upstart Merchants Union Express Company, founded in 1866,
gave American Express a good run of it for a few years. After two
years of furious competition, the companies decided that it would
be more profitable to merge than to fight; in late 1868, the American
Express and Merchants Union joined together as American Merchants
Union Express Company. Fargo took the reigns of the new concern, which,
in 1873, adopted its more familiar name as the American Express Company.
American Express, of course, has since mutated into a giant in the
fields of finance and travel, with offices spread across the globe.

1844 (06 March Julian), Russian composer (Scheherazade,
Song of India, The Flight of the Bumblebee), teacher, and editor. He was
at his best in descriptive orchestrations suggesting a mood or a place.
He

^1844 (06 March
Julian) Nicolay Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov, Russian
composer teacher, and editor, who died on 21 June (08 June Julian)
1908. Rimsky-Korsakov, along with Aleksandr Borodin [12 Nov 1833 –
27 Feb 1887], Mily Balakirev [02 Jan 1837 – 29 May 1910], César
Cui [18 Jan 1835 – 24 Mar 1918],
and Modest Mussorgsky [21 Mar 1839 – 28
Mar 1881], was a member of The Five, a group of Russian composers
bound together in the common goal of creating a nationalist school
of Russian music. Rimsky-Korsakov
was the product of many influences. His father was a government official
of liberal views, and his mother was well educated and could play
the piano.His uncle was an admiral in the Russian navy, and his elder
brother was a marine officer. From them Rimsky-Korsakov acquired his
interest in music and his abiding love for the sea. When he was 12
years old the family moved to St. Petersburg, where he entered the
naval academy. At age 15 he began taking piano lessons and learned
the rudiments of composition. In 1861 he met the composer Mily Balakirev,a
man of great musical culture, and under the older man's guidance he
began to compose a symphony. In
1862 he graduated from the naval academy. Soon afterward he sailed
on the clipper ship Almaz on a long voyage, the vessel anchoring
in New York City; Baltimore, Maryland; and Washington DC, at the height
of the US Civil War. Since Russia was politically sympathetic toward
the North, the sailors were cordially welcomed there. Subsequent ports
of call were Brazil (where he was promoted to the rank of midshipman),
Spain, Italy, France, England, and Norway. The ship returned to its
home port of Kronstadt (Kronshtadt) in May 1865. For young Rimsky-Korsakov
the voyage confirmed a fascination with the sea. Aquatic scenes abound
in his operas and symphonic works: the ocean in Scheherazade
(1888), Sadko (1898), and The Tale of Tsar Saltan
(1900), and the lake in The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh
and the Maiden Fevronia (1907).
On his return to St. Petersburg, Rimsky-Korsakov completed the symphony
begun before his voyage, and it was performed with gratifying success
in St. Petersburg on December 31, 1865, when the composer was only
21 years old. His next important work was Fantasy on Serbian Themes
for orchestra, first performed at a concert of Slavonic music conducted
by Balakirev in St. Petersburg, on 24 May 1867. The occasion was of
historic significance, for, in reviewing the concert, the critic Vladimir
Stasov proudly proclaimed that henceforth Russia, too, had its own
“mighty little heap” (moguchaya kuchka) of native composers.
The name caught on quickly and found its way into music history books,
with specific reference to Rimsky-Korsakov, Balakirev, Aleksandr Borodin,
César Cui, and Modest Mussorgsky. The composers became known
collectively as The Five, and their purpose was seen to be to assert
the musical independence of Russia from the West. Of the five, Rimsky-Korsakov
was the most learned and the most productive; he composed works in
all genres, but he most excelled in the field of opera.
So high was Rimsky-Korsakov's reputation that in 1871, when he was
still a very young man, he was engaged to teach composition at the
St. Petersburg Conservatory. In his autobiographical Chronicle
of My Musical Life (1909) he frankly admitted his lack of qualifications
for this important position; he himself had never taken a systematic
academic course in musical theory, even though he had profited from
Balakirev's desultory instruction and by Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky's
professional advice. Eager to complete his own musical education,
he undertook in 1873 an ambitious program of study, concentrating
mainly on counterpoint and the fugue. He ended his studies in 1875
by sending 10 fugues to Tchaikovsky, who declared them impeccable.
In 1873 he left the naval service and
assumed charge of military bands as inspector and conductor. Although
he lacked brilliance as an orchestral leader, he attained excellent
results in training inexperienced instrumentalists. His first professional
appearance on the podium took place in St. Petersburg on 02 March
1874, when he conducted the first performance of his Symphony
No. 3. In the same year he was appointed director of the Free
Music School in St. Petersburg, a post that he held until 1881. He
served as conductor of concerts at the court chapel from1883 to 1894
and was chief conductor of the Russian symphony concerts between 1886
and 1900. In 1889 he led concerts of Russian music at the Paris World
Exposition, and in the spring of 1907 he conducted in Paris two Russian
historic concerts in connection with Sergey Diaghilev's Ballets Russes.
Rimsky-Korsakov rendered an inestimable
service to Russian music as the de facto editor and head of a unique
publishing enterprise financed by the Russian industrialist M.P. Belyayev
and dedicated exclusively to the publication of music by Russian composers.
After Mussorgsky's death, Rimsky-Korsakov edited his scores for publication,
making radical changes in what he considered Mussorgsky's awkward
melodic and harmonic progressions, and he practically rewrote Mussorgsky's
opera Khovanshchina . His edited and altered version of Boris Godunov
evoked sharp criticism from modernists who venerated Mussorgsky's
originality; but Rimsky-Korsakov's intervention vouchsafed the opera's
survival. Mussorgsky's score was later published in 1928 and had several
performances in Russia and abroad, but ultimately the more effective
Rimsky-Korsakov version prevailed in opera houses. Rimsky-Korsakov
also edited (with the composer Aleksandr Glazunov) the posthumous
works of Borodin. A strict disciplinarian
in artistic matters, Rimsky-Korsakov was also a severe critic of his
own music. He made constant revisions of his early compositions, in
which he found technical imperfections. As a result, double dates,
indicating early and revised versions, frequently occur in his catalog
of works. He was at his best and most typical in his descriptive works.
With two exceptions (Servilia [1902] and Mozart and Salieri
[1898]), the subjects of Rimsky-Korsakov's operas are taken from
Russian or other Slavic fairy tales, literature, and history. These
include Snow Maiden (1882), Sadko, The Tsar's Bride
(1899), The Tale of Tsar Saltan, The Legend of the Invisible City
of Kitezh and the Maiden Fevronia, and Le Coq d'or (1909).
Although these operas are part of the regular repertory in Russian
opera houses, they are rarely heard abroad; only Le Coq d'or
enjoys occasional production in western Europe and the United States.
Of the composer's orchestral works,
the best known are Capriccio espagnol (1887), the symphonic
suite Scheherazade, and Russian Easter Festival
(1888) overture. “The Flight of the Bumble Bee” from The
Tale of Tsar Saltan and the “Song of India”from Sadko
are perennial favorites in a variety of arrangements.
Rimsky-Korsakov's songs are distinguished by simple elegance and fine
Russian prosody; his chamber music is of less importance. He also
wrote a piano concerto. As a professor of composition and orchestration
at the St. Petersburg Conservatory from 1871 until the end of his
life (with the exception of a brief period in 1905 when he was dismissed
by the reactionary directorate for his defense of students on strike),
he taught two generations of Russian composers, and his influence,
therefore, was pervasive. Igor Stravinsky studied privately with him
for several years. His Practical Manual of Harmony (1884)
and Fundamentals of Orchestration (posthumous, 1913) are
still used as basic musical textbooks in Russia.

1842 Stéphane Mallarmé‚ French poet. 
MALLARME ONLINE: MALLARMÉ ONLINE: (French original, page images):
L'après-midi d'un faune : églogue -- L'après-midi
d'un faune : églogue -- Préface
à Vathek -- Album
de vers et de prose -- Pages...1839 Barbier,
mathematician. 1838 Sir Randal Cremer Britain, trade
unionist, pacifist (Nobel 1903) 1837 Grover Cleveland
(22nd [1885-1889] and 24th [1893-1897] US President, only one to serve 2
nonconsecutive terms; only president to be married in White House; the first
to have a child born there. He died on 24 June 1908. 1834
First railroad tunnel in US is completed, in Penn (275 m long)1822 (1824?) Johannes Hendrik Weissenbruch,
German painter who died on 15 February 1880.  MORE
ON WEISSENBRUCH AT ART 4 MARCH
with links to images. 1813 Coal gas making apparatus,
patented by David Melville, Newport, RI.1798 Francis Lieber,
German-born US political philosopher and jurist who died on 02 October 1872.
 LIEBER ONLINE: Manual
of Political Ethics (page images). 1796 Jakob
Steiner, mathematician.

^
1782John
Caldwell Calhoun He
would be US Vice President under John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson
[1825-1832], the first VP to resign office: became a US Senator
John C. Calhoun was born near Abbeville,
South Carolina. Calhoun became a congressman, senator, secretary of
war, secretary of state, and vice president of the United States.
A formidable theorist, Calhoun was also known for his irascible temperament.
Even his protégé James Hammond allowed that Calhoun was "wanting in
judgement in the managing of men." Calhoun is remembered for his determined
defense of the institution of slavery. During the course of his career,
he reversed his stand as a nationalist and advocated states' rights
as a means of preserving slavery in the South. As a South Carolina
senator, Calhoun used the argument of states' rights to protect slavery
in what is known as the Nullification
Crisis of 1832-1833. Calhoun died on 31 March 1850.

1733 Friedrich Nicolai, German writer; a leader of the
German Enlightenment. He died on 08 January 1811. 1690 Goldbach,
mathematician. 1640 La
Hire, mathematician.1609 Frederick III,
king of Denmark and Norway (1648-1670); absolutist 1602
Billy,
mathematician.1548 Cornelis Ketel, Flemish painter
who died on 08 August 1616.  MORE
ON KETEL AT ART 4 MARCH
with links to images.1452 Amerigo Vespucci (navigator:
said to be the first to discover America: it was actually the coast of South
America including Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina [1497])

Thoughts
for the day:
Even a hawk is an eagle among crows.
"Even a hawk is an eagle among cows."Even a hawk is a crow among eagles.Even an eagle is a hawk among cows.
Even a beagle is a cow among hawks.“
“If Tutu toucan can cancan, two toucans too can cancan.